Stage set for Miss USA, prelims get underway Wednesday night

BATON ROUGE - The Miss USA association officially announced it was able to secure three hosts for its telecast, forced to a high-tier cable channel after comments its owner made about illegal immigrants.

Tuesday, hours after TMZ.com published the names, organizers shared a news release from the cable channel ReelzTV. WBRZ.com reported the names in a prior post about how the contestants were dealing with the comments made by Donald Trump.

Todd Newton, Alex Wehrley and Julie Alexandria will participate in the show, which will originate from the Baton Rouge River Center on July 12th. Newton is a game show host, Wehrley was Miss Wisconsin USA in 2009 and Alexandria is an entertainment reporter and will report from backstage during the show.

As organizers and producers corralled hosts Tuesday, the finishing touches were put on the stage itself. The backdrop appears to be a large screen that will likely take on various presentation themes. To the right and left is a swamp motif.

Wednesday night the preliminary competition gets underway. The field will be narrowed from 51 contestants down to just 15.The prelims will begin at 8 p.m. at the Baton Rouge River Center.

Tickets are still available to the pageant and prelims via Ticketmaster. Floor seats, where people are most likely to be seen by TV cameras, are sold out. **************Follow the publisher of this post on Twitter: @treyschmaltz